English and American Literature

On BA English & American Literature, you will have the opportunity to explore the distinct but interrelated literary traditions of two nations and cultures spanning five centuries, from the early 1600s to the present day. This degree is directly informed by the creative and critical mix of academic experts in the College's top-rated English department.

You will begin the degree with a grounding in the two distinct literary cultures, then you choose options allowing you to explore different periods, genres and topics. In your final year you will continue to follow your own interests, specialising and taking research-based options or writing a dissertation.

You'll be exposed to a wide variety of areas in American literature, including the literature of the first encounter, nineteenth-century and African-American writing, satire, New York School poetry, drama, the urban novel and writing about music and the novella. In addition you can take advantage of an exceptional range of options in English literature, theory and postcolonial literature.

You will have the chance to take courses in other departments, studying American history or film, to broaden your understanding of America and will be offered the chance to study abroad, enhancing your understanding of the USA or another country.

You can go beyond the study of existing literature, with the opportunity to take modules in creative writing and will be taught by academics who have won national and College prizes for teaching and for their publications.

• Gain a grounding in two distinct literary cultures.

• Specific American literature centred core modules.

• Take American history and film modules outside of English.

• Teachers include prize-winning American novelists, Ben Markovits and Douglas Cowie

• The opportunity to study in the USA for one year.

Course Modules

Core Modules

Year 1

• Critical Foundations: Thinking As A Critic

• Introduction to Poetry

• Literature and Crisis

• Reorienting the Novel

• Introducing America, 1600-1900

Year 2

• The American Century, 1900-2000

Year 3

• All modules are optional

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

Year 1

• All modules are core

Year 2

• American Gothic

• Middle English Poetry

• Tolkien's Roots

• Medieval Dream and Vision

• Strange Fictions: Romance in the Middle Ages

• Renaissance Literature

• Intensive Shakespeare: Comedy, History, Tragedy

• Drama and Witchcraft

• Early Modern Bodies

• Literature after the Conquest: 1066-1340

• Victorian Literature

• Romanticisms

• Creative Writing: Structure and Style

• Literature of the Fin de Siècle, 1883-1903

• Contemporary Debates in Literary and Critical Theory

• Modernisms

• Literature and the Digital

Year 3

• Ideas in Contemporary Fiction

• On Murder

• Advanced Shakespeare: The Problem Plays

• Literature and Philosophy

• Brexit, Literature and Discipline of English

• James Joyce: Revolutions of the Word

• Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

• Reading Like a Victorian

• First World War Literature

• The Girl in the Book

• Children's Literature

• The Post-Colonial Novel

• Literature, the Digital and the Creative Industries

• The New York Schools: Poetry, Painting, Composition

• The 1930s British Fiction and the Road to War

• Special Author: Virginia Woolf

• Special Author: Chaucer

• Special Author: Charles Dickens

• Special Author: Herman Melville

• Reading the Waste Land

• Creative Writing Special Focus (Term 1)

• English Dissertation

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/english/english-and-american-literature/

You will take the equivalent of four units each year.

In year one this includes a core course introducing American literature from 1600 to 1900, as well as core courses in English, poetry, the novel and Shakespeare.

In year two students take a core course in American Literature from 1900 to the present, as well as one or more of the core second-year English full units, and other option choice.

In your final year, you will take a balanced combination of American and English Literature options, including Special Topics, Special Author papers and an optional dissertation

Options in American history or film can also be taken in other departments in years two and three, where pathway rules and timetabling allow it.

Teaching is mostly by seminars and lectures, with an additional small tutorial group in year one. These methods are backed up by individual consultations for feedback on essays throughout the degree, and dissertation supervision in year three.

All students will also belong to study groups and undertake co-operative work for some courses, and take training courses run by the Library.

Assessment is via a combination of:

• exams

• essays

• take-away papers

• projects

• marked presentations in some courses